Assessment Process

Assessment Process

Summative assessments of student learning are formal, planned assessments that provide data and are administered in order for teachers to make a variety of determinations and judgments, including grade allocations as well as whether or not students have achieved specific final classroom, state, national, or international goals. The high-stakes, either annual standardized assessments or assessments at the conclusion of a project or course (such as portfolios or culminating projects), were developed and are administered as a result of various public reporting requirements including those of No Child Left Behind.

Formative assessments are ongoing assessments to enhance learning while the learning process is under way. Rather than an exclusive focus on the information needs of teachers or society, this is likely the case with summative assessment. The most helpful formative assessments are student focused and designed to inform, influence, and increase student learning early enough in the learning process for the results to be used as a meaningful student information and improvement tool with a goal of student success for all students. The results may likewise provide teachers feedback regarding concepts that have been taught well along with those that may need instructional refinements. These appraisals may be informal or formal and include methods such as maintaining and reviewing learning logs, oral questioning, teacher and student reviews of draft work, and teacher observations. The resulting feedback that is provided to students may come from teachers as well as peers.

Authentic Assessment aims to process more than the result, leading to the student to take responsibility for their learning and see the evaluation as a means to achieve it. Another important feature of this type of assessment is that student participation is extremely active, as it not only evaluates the teacher, but he does, through self and co-evaluation, which allows the learner to be part of process and see the teacher as a mediator. Examples of authentic assessment techniques include performance assessments, portfolios and self-evaluation (O'Malley, 2003).

The performance evaluation implies that students show evidence of their acquired learning and personal way of processing information through face tasks and display products, such as short stories, comics, interview results, videos, croqueras, etc. It involves developing guidelines or rubrics to assess their quality (Newman, 2000).

Today's assessment programs of secondary classes face a number of challenges and opportunities in the discussion of assessment. These include finding ways to teach and evaluate not only content knowledge ...